The former director of sales and marketing for Pacific Consolidated Industries (PCI) admitted yesterday that he bribed an official from the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MOD) in return for equipment orders. Leo Winston Smith, 73, pleaded guilty in the U.S. federal district court for central California to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (18 U.S.C. §371) and corruptly obstructing and impeding the due administration of the internal revenue laws (26 U.S.C. §7212(a)).

Smith, along with PCI's former president and part owner, Martin Eric Self, 51, paid at least $70,000 in bribes to the MOD official. The money was funneled through a sham marketing agreement PCI created in 1999 with a relative of the official. In return, PCI was awarded MOD contracts worth around $11 million. Smith also admitted under-reporting income on his 2003 U.S. federal tax return and failing to file a 2003 corporate return for his Nevada company, Design Smith Inc.

Sentencing in Smith's case is scheduled for December 18, 2009. He faces a maximum five years in prison on the FCPA conspiracy charge and three years on the tax charge, and a fine of about $255,000.

His co-conspirator, Martin Eric Self, pleaded guilty in May 2008 to violating the FCPA (here). Although Self faced up to five years in prison on each of two FCPA counts, his plea agreement contemplated a prison term of eight months. He was finally sentenced in November 2008 to two years probation. The MOD official, Michael Hale, pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom to accepting nine separate payments from PCI totaling more than $300,000. He was sentenced in April 2007 to two years in prison.

Privately-held PCI manufactures Air Separation Units (ASUs) and other equipment for the military, medical, and oil and gas markets. ASUs generate oxygen in remote, extreme, and confined locations. The Justice Department said that in late 2003, after the alleged illegal conduct occurred, a group of private investors bought California-based PCI. They referred the case to U.S. prosecutors and "fully cooperated in the government’s investigation."

The Justice Department says it plans to prosecute more individuals under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- and send them to jail. We looked through our posts to see how men and women fared over the past year. Below are excerpts from posts dealing with those who've been criminally charged or sentenced under the FCPA, or settled enforcement actions with the SEC, or both, during the past twelve months. The titles link to the original posts.

The Justice Department said it arrested four people last week on charges that they and their company bribed Vietnamese officials in exchange for contracts to supply equipment and technology to government agencies in Vietnam.

The DOJ said U.S. citizens Nam Nguyen, 52, of Houston; Joseph Lukas, 59, of Smithville, N.J.; Kim Nguyen, 39, of Philadelphia; and An Nguyen, 32, of Philadelphia were arrested after they, along with Nexus Technologies Inc., were indicted on Sept. 4, 2008, by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia on one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and four substantive counts of violating the FCPA.

The Justice Department said today that Albert “Jack” Stanley, 65, a former chairman and CEO of KBR, the global engineering and construction firm based in Houston, pleaded guilty to a two-count criminal information charging him with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He appeared in U.S. District Court in his hometown of Houston before U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison. . . .

Under the plea deal accepted by the court, Stanley faces seven years in prison and a restitution payment of $10.8 million.

Two former telecommunications executives who admitted bribing employees of state-owned companies in Africa and concealing the payments have avoided prison in exchange for their cooperation in an ongoing FBI investigation.

The Justice Department said yesterday that Roger Michael Young, 48, of Washington, D.C., a former managing director of ITXC Corporation, has been sentenced to five years probation, including three months home confinement, three months in a community confinement center, and a $7,000 fine. He pleaded guilty in July 2007 to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Travel Act.

Former ITXC Vice President Steven J. Ott, 49, of Princeton, N.J., who also pleaded guilty, was sentenced in July this year to five years probation, including six months in a community confinement center and six months home confinement. He was fined $10,000.

A third defendant in the case, Yaw Osei Amoako, 55, of Hillsborough, N.J., pleaded guilty in September 2006. He was sentenced in August 2007 to 18 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release, and a $7,500 fine.

A former co-owner and executive of California-based Pacific Consolidated Industries (PCI) pleaded guilty yesterday to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Martin Eric Self, 51, of Orange, California pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging him with violating the FCPA by paying more than $70,000 in bribes to a U.K. Ministry of Defence official. The bribes were intended to secure equipment contracts with the U.K. Royal Air Force. . . .

Self is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on September 29, 2008. Although he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison per count, his plea agreement contemplates a prison term of eight months, subject to the court's final determination at sentencing.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said that on April 18, 2008 it settled civil proceedings under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act against Steven J. Ott, Roger Michael Young, and Yaw Osei Amoako. The SEC charged the former executives of ITXC Corp. with violating the antibribery and books and records provisions of the FCPA by bribing senior officials of government-owned telephone companies in Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal, and concealing and falsely reporting the illegal payments.

In settling the SEC's civil enforcement action, Ott, Young and Amoako each consented to the entry of a final judgment that permanently enjoins them from violating Sections 30A and 13(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Rule 13b2-1 thereunder, and from aiding and abetting violations of Exchange Act Section 13(b)(2)(A) and, with respect to Ott and Young, violations of Exchange Act Section 13(b)(2)(B). Amoako also must pay $188,453 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest. He took kickbacks for some of the bribes he paid to the foreign officials.

The Justice Department has announced the April 22, 2008 sentencing of former World Bank employee, Ramendra Basu. The Indian national and U.S. permanent resident received 15 months in prison for conspiring to award World Bank contracts to consultants in exchange for kickbacks and for helping a contractor bribe a foreign official in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In addition to the 15- month prison term, Basu was sentenced to two years supervised release and 50 hours of community service. U.S. v. Basu, (Cr. No. 02-475) D.D.C., November 2002.

Wow! It's not often -- never, in fact -- that we can talk about the LA movie scene and tap Variety as one of our sources. But here it is. The Department of Justice just announced that a Los Angeles film executive and his wife were arrested on allegations of making corrupt payments to a Thai government official in order to obtain lucrative contracts to run an international film festival in Bangkok, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Gerald Green, 75, and his wife Patricia Green, 52, both of Los Angeles, were arrested on a criminal complaint filed on Dec. 7, 2007, in federal court in Los Angeles and unsealed today. The complaint alleges that the Greens conspired to pay more than $1.7 million in bribes for the benefit of a government official with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) in order to obtain the film festival contract and other contracts with the TAT worth more than $10 million.

The former chairman and ceo of Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. resolved charges on December 13, 2007 brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Robert W. Philip, 60, of Portland, Oregon, will pay about $250,000 to settle charges that he violated the antibribery, books and records and internal controls provisions of the FCPA (Section 30A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 [15 U.S.C. § 78dd-1], Section13(b)(2)(A) [15 U.S.C. § 78m(b)(2)(A)], and Section 13(b)(2)(B) [15 U.S.C. § 78m(b)(2)(B)]). He served as Schnitzer's president beginning in 1991, as its chief executive officer from 2002, and as chairman from 2004. He left the company in May 2005.

Jason Edward Steph, 37, who once served as general manager of on-shore operations for a subsidiary of Willbros Group Inc., entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice on November 5, 2007. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe officials of the government of Nigeria with more than $6 million -- in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Steph, of Sunset, Texas, was indicted on July 19, 2007. He now faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. . . .

Steph also said that in February and March of 2005 he, former Willbros executive Jim Bob Brown, and others arranged for the payment of approximately $1.8 million in cash to government officials in Nigeria. Brown pleaded guilty to a similar charge on Sept. 14, 2006. Steph and Brown are cooperating with the government’s ongoing investigation . . . .

Monty Fu, the founder of Syncor International Corp., agreed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 27, 2007 to resolve U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges by consenting to a permanent injunction against FCPA books-and-records violations and agreeing to pay a $75,000 civil penalty. Fu was Syncor's CEO from 1985 to 1989 and board chairman from 1985 to November 6, 2002, when he went on paid leave until he resigned in December 2002.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced on September 25, 2007 two settled enforcement actions based on violations of the books and records provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The actions involved the founder and former president of A.T. Kearney Ltd's India business, Chandramowli Srinivasan, and Kearney's former parent company, Electronic Data Systems Corp. . . .

For violating Sections 13(b)(5) and 30A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Srinivasan paid a civil penalty of $70,000.

A former co-owner and executive of California-based Pacific Consolidated Industries (PCI) pleaded guilty yesterday to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Martin Eric Self, 51, of Orange, California pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging him with violating the FCPA by paying more than $70,000 in bribes to a U.K. Ministry of Defence official. The bribes were intended to secure equipment contracts with the U.K. Royal Air Force.

In October 1999, Self, a U.S. citizen, and Leo Winston Smith, then PCI’s executive vice president and director of sales and marketing, had PCI enter into a marketing agreement with a relative of a U.K. Ministry of Defence official. According to the DOJ, Self -- a signatory on PCI's marketing agreements and bank accounts -- admitted that he didn't know of any genuine services provided by the official’s relative. Instead, Self believed the payments probably were benefiting the official in exchange for obtaining and retaining the equipment-supply contracts.

Self is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on September 29, 2008. Although he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison per count, his plea agreement contemplates a prison term of eight months, subject to the court's final determination at sentencing.

For his role in the scheme, former marketing head Smith, a co-founder of PCI, was indicted in April 2007. The government says he conspired to bribe the U.K. Ministry of Defence official in order to obtain equipment contracts worth more than $11 million dollars. In addition to the FCPA violations, the indictment also charges Smith with money laundering and tax offenses. He's scheduled to stand trial in July 2008. Self, as part of his plea agreement, will presumably testify against his former colleague. Evidence against Smith is also likely to come from U.K. authorities. Their investigation of the U.K. Ministry of Defence official resulted in his guilty plea in the United Kingdom for accepting bribes from PCI. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Privately-held PCI manufactures Air Separation Units (ASUs) and other equipment for the military, medical, and oil and gas markets. ASUs generate oxygen in remote, extreme and confined locations. The DOJ said that in late 2003, after the alleged illegal conduct occurred, PCI was acquired by a group of investors who referred the case to U.S. prosecutors and "fully cooperated in the government’s investigation."

Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Alice S. Fisher, who departs from the DOJ later this month, said, “Individuals who resort to bribery and other fraudulent means to secure contracts with foreign governments not only corrupt legitimate bidding processes, but they also damage the integrity of the global marketplace. Furthermore, using an intermediary to make bribe payments will not insulate individuals from prosecution."

Referring to the collaboration by prosecutors in the U.S. and U.K., Ms. Fisher also said, "The coordinated international law enforcement efforts of this case exemplify the type of cooperation needed to fight crime in the 21st century, where physical borders are not boundaries for criminal activity. I would like to thank our colleagues in the United Kingdom for their efforts and assistance in prosecuting this case as well as the FBI and IRS for their investigatory assistance.”